The present invention relates to online advertising management and more particularly to techniques for targeting information in the Internet environment. Specific embodiments can target advertising and other marketing information.
With the rapid development of electronic commerce, the number of Internet companies offering free services with the goal of creating a customer base for web advertising has increased dramatically. Typically, Internet companies host web pages using a portal, a web page with links to many other web pages. Portals contain web advertisements. Companies advertising on the portal pay a royalty to the portal provider. Examples of popular portals include MYYAHOO, MYEXCITE, NETSCAPE NETCENTER, and HOTMAIL.
While there are perceived advantages to using web portals, further efficiencies can be had. For example, web portals are unable to provide advertising to the user once the user exits the realm of web pages controlled by the portal. Internet service providers (ISPs), such as America On Line (AOL), have more control over the advertising reaching their subscribers because the ISPs retain control over pages served to the user. However, to continue to provide advertising on every web page served to a user currently requires reformatting the web page or popping up annoying windows with advertisements in them.
What is needed is a technique for targeting advertising to online users without compromising user privacy.
According to the present invention, an internet target marketing system, method and computer program for distributing online advertising to viewers based upon the viewers"" interests is provided. Specific embodiments according to the present invention can use an n-way matching of user""s concepts of interest, advertiser""s concepts and concepts contained in a currently viewed document to target advertising to the viewer of the current document. Some embodiments can generate a contextually sensitive advertisement for each page viewed in a browser, thereby associating an advertisement with every page in a document. Specific embodiments can associate advertising with documents that are substantially free of embedded advertisements, for example. Alternative embodiments can include embedded advertising, however.
In a specific embodiment according to the present invention, a method for targeting advertising to a user based upon content of an active document is provided. An active document can be one that is presently displayed to a user, for example. However, in some embodiments, an active document can be one that is being processed by a daemon or background process. The method includes analyzing at least one document to identify discussion of information corresponding to one or more user selectable concepts of interest. This analysis can provide a user concept relevance, which can comprise a measure of relevance of the document to one or more concepts defined by the user. The method can also include analyzing the document to identify discussion of information corresponding to one or more advertiser selectable concepts of interest. This analysis can provide an advertiser concept relevance, which can comprise a measure of relevance of the document to one or more concepts defined by the advertiser. The method can also include comparing the user concept relevance and the advertiser concept relevance for the document to determine an overall relevance. Selecting advertising having a particular overall relevance can also be part of the method. The particular relevance can be the greatest relevance, least relevance, or within a range of greatest or least relevance, for example. The method can also include displaying the advertisement selected to a user.
In another embodiment according to the present invention, a system for targeting advertising to a user based upon content of one or more documents displayed to the user is provided. The system comprises a profile content recognizer that analyzes contents of documents for information corresponding to one or more user selectable concepts. The profile content recognizer provides an output of concepts contained in the document that correspond to the one or more user selectable concepts. The system also comprises an advertising content recognizer that analyzes content of documents for information corresponding to one or more advertiser selectable concepts. A comparator compares the output from the profile content recognizer and the output from the advertising content recognizer and selects from a plurality of stored advertisements ones that are relevant to the information contained in the documents based upon the comparison.
In a further embodiment according to the present invention, a computer program product for targeting advertising to users based upon a content of one or more documents displayed to the user comprises code for analyzing the documents to identify discussion of information corresponding to one or more user selectable concepts of interest is provided. This code can provide a user concept relevance indication, which can comprise a measure of relevance of the document to one or more concepts defined by the user. Code for analyzing the documents to identify discussion of information corresponding to one or more advertiser selectable concepts of interest is provided. This code can provide an advertiser concept relevance indication, which can comprise a measure of relevance of the document to one or more concepts defined by the advertiser. Code for comparing the user concept relevance and the advertiser concept relevance for the document in order to determine an overall relevance is also part of the product. Code for selecting advertising having a particular overall relevance and a computer readable storage medium for holding the codes are also part of the product. The particular relevance can be the greatest relevance, least relevance, or within a range of greatest or least relevance, for example.
In a yet further embodiment according to the present invention, a method for automatically associating advertising objects with web objects is provided. The method includes analyzing one or more web objects to identify information corresponding to at least one first concept of interest and analyzing the one or more web objects to identify information corresponding to at least one second concept of interest. Determining a relevance between the first concepts of interest and the second concepts of interest can also be part of the method. The method can also include associating the one or more web objects with the one or more advertising objects based upon the relevance.
In a still further embodiment according to the present invention, a computer program product for automatically associating advertising objects with web objects is provided. Code for analyzing one or more web objects to identify information corresponding to at least one first concept of interest can be part of the product. Code for analyzing the one or more web objects to identify information corresponding to at least one second concept of interest can also be part of the product. The product can also include code for determining a relevance between the first concept of interest and the second concept of interest. Code for associating the one or more web objects with the one or more advertising objects based upon relevance and a computer readable storage medium for holding the codes can also be part of the product.
Numerous benefits are achieved by way of the present invention over conventional techniques. The present invention can provide a way to target advertising relevant to the viewer""s current interests along with web pages on a single screen. Embodiments according to the present invention can achieve more specific targeting than techniques known in the art. For example, some embodiments can detect that one user""s definition of sports includes hunting and fishing, while another user""s idea of sports may include marathon running. Such embodiments can provide better targeting of advertisements than conventional techniques. Some embodiments according to the present invention can provide better protection of viewers"" privacy than conventional web browser user interfaces. Embodiments according to the invention can provide more information to the user than known techniques. Many embodiments according to the invention will enhance the user""s web browsing experience by providing indication of which links are likely to be of most interest. These and other benefits are described throughout the present specification.
A further understanding of the nature and advantages of the inventions herein may be realized by reference to the remaining portions of the specification and the attached drawings.